


A Microchip Breakfast

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [95]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Fix It, Gen, Series 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: “Damn it,” she mutters under her breath, and throws the door open again. “Odi,” she calls after him. “Wait up.”An AU in which S2 Mattie has the logic of S1 Mattie.
Relationships: Mattie Hawkins & Odi Millican
Series: As Prompted [95]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/360089
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	A Microchip Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was 'fix it'. As I wrote at the time, "I almost always ignore deaths in fic so today I went for fixing my biggest problem with series 2 instead. Sorry Mattie, for what comes across as a personal attack."

The door closes behind Odi, and in all honesty, Mattie’s just looking forward to getting on with the rest of her plan. She turns away, ready to get back to her computer and her quest for (what exactly?) finding Leo.

Then she turns on her heel. “Damn it,” she mutters under her breath, and throws the door open again. “Odi,” she calls after him. “Wait up.”

Slowly, crookedly, he looks back at her. “Mattie. I thought you said…”

“I know what I said, but it’s not safe. No offence, but you’re way beyond your sell-by date and if anyone finds you, they’ll call Special Tech, and you’ll be scrapped. Or worse.”

“What’s worse than being scrapped?”

She’s been on the Headcrack forum enough the last few days to have seen the rumours. Unmarked vans, coming to spirit away synths who start asking questions. “I don’t know. Just…come back in.”

He follows her.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll still work on what we said. Finding you a purpose or whatever. But maybe not outside on your own, right now.”

Later, at dinner, she comes clean. Her father puts his head in his hands but lets her mother give the lecture on responsibility.

“Bringing a life into the world isn’t a joke, Mattie,” Laura scolds, and Mattie doesn’t argue back, although in her head she says, _Calm down, Mum, it’s not like I’ve gone and got pregnant._

Toby is impressed, she can tell, that’s she’s dropped herself in it. “I was going to keep him a secret,” she says, in answer to her brother’s eyebrows, “But he’s miserable. And this is the one house in the country where he doesn’t have to be. I thought, if everyone knows…”

Laura sighs. “Go on then. Go and get him.”

Sophie is way ahead of her, already out of her seat by the time Mattie’s set down her fork. Mattie trails after, and meets them coming back, her small sister’s holding on tight to Odi’s good hand.

“You’re our family now,” says Sophie, with more expression in her voice than is usual nowadays. Mattie catches a significant glance passing between her parents, knows they’ve noticed too.

Toby pulls up an extra chair that’s usually home to the ironing pile. “There you go, mate.”

“Thank you,” says Odi formally, and Sophie scuttles back to her own chair on his other side.

“So where were we?” Joe asks with a grin that doesn’t quite hide his unease at having a conscious synth at the table again. At least he’s trying.

“Microchips?” pipes up Sophie, and they all disintegrate into laughter, Joe loudest of all. Odi looks round at them, oblivious to the significance of Sophie cracking a joke, or the reference to Anita’s first meal with the family: seeing, Mattie assumes, only happiness.

And, in doing so, he smiles.

Mattie grins back at him, relieved. It’s better this way. She’s lost a day of searching time, but it’s not the end of the world, probably. Leo will be just as bemused to see her tomorrow as he would have been today. And it’s always nice when you cure someone’s overidentification complex in your own selfish quest for peace of mind.

As Sophie sneakily transfers a spoonful of peas onto the empty plate in front of Odi, Mattie nods to herself. Tomorrow she can really get going.


End file.
